Rare Robert Burns collection in Braille presented to University of Glasgow

A rare Braille collection of the complete works of Robert Burns will today (Wednesday 11 October 2017) be presented to the University of Glasgow by Joan Muir, from Kilwinning in Ayrshire, who had gifted them earlier to the local Irvine Burns Club. The Club, which owns and manages the Wellwood Burns Centre in Irvine, believed that passing the books to the University of Glasgow, where they will be on permanent loan, was more in keeping with the owner's wishes that they would not only be preserved but also used. Mrs Muir, who has been blind since the age of three, was accompanied by Allen Paterson, President of the Irvine Burns Club, in presenting the works to the Centre for Robert Burns Studies at the University during National Braille Week (9 to 15 October 2017). She said: "I have gained so much from these works of Robert Burns and thoroughly enjoyed owning them for all these years. Although the books are almost 50 years old, the braille dots are still sharp and are easily read by a blind person. It contains all of Burns' poetry as well as many of his letters. "I don't know how many folks still have copies of the Burns' Braille books from that era but I imagine that, like me, they will not be that young.